The plans come in the wake of the devastating Berlin Christmas market terror attack, pictured Merel with de Maizière (right) and Justice Minister Heiko Maas (left) after the tragedy

It comes after the German Chancellor, who is set to run for a fourth term in office later this year, made an extraordinary u-turn on her controversial open-door migrant policy as she vowed to send 100,000 migrants back to war-torn countries.

Outlining his security services overhaul, de Maizière today said the government needs “more powers” to get failed asylum seekers onto planes more quickly.

He also called for giving federal police wider oversight across the country’s 16 states and for a new national crisis management centre to be set up.

The plans for a sweeping reform come after a series of embarrassing security failures, with the December 19 attack training a spotlight on the gaps.

After Tunisian suspect Anis Amri allegedly rammed a truck into a crowded Christmas market on December 19, killing 12, it swiftly emerged that the asylum seeker had slipped through the net of security services.

Hundreds of migrants leave the transit zone of the Budapest main train station last year and start walking to the Austrian border and onwards to Germany

Tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers are currently clogging up the German justice system with taxpayer funded lawsuits fighting their deportation orders.

De Maizière is a close aide of Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is running for a fourth term in a general election expected in September.

Her government came under fire in the wake of the Berlin attack for its liberal border policy, which has allowed in more than one million asylum seekers since 2015, and for allowing Amri to slip through the net despite documented security concerns.

The December atrocity was only one of several cases last year that exposed security failings in Germany.

In October, police botched an attempt to arrest a Syrian bomb plot suspect.

The man was finally caught after a nationwide manhunt, thanks to Syrian asylum seekers who detained him but was later found hanged in his cell.

And in November, Germany’s domestic spy service unmasked a Spanish-born agent in its own ranks as a suspected Islamist. Media reports said he was also a former gay porn actor.

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